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Foothills Trail Oct 9-11

I'll be backpacking on the Foothills Trail (South Carolina) near Lake Jocassee this weekend. We'll do an 8 mile stretch from Laurel Valley to the Laurel Fork Falls. (A4 to A5 on the map) I'll camp at the top of the falls and test out the Snug-Fit I bought from Counselor. We plan to go in on Friday and hike back out on Sunday. I am really excited about this.

He is your friend, your companion, your defender... he is your dog. You are his life, his leader, and master. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of that devotion.

Well, I went with a friend and fellow hanger to the Foothills Trail last weekend. We didn't quite go as far as we had planned. We did a section called Laurel Valley and it really kicked my butt. Had lots of these.

and these.

We stopped just past the Virginia Hawkins Waterfall, about only 5 miles in instead of the 8 we had planned, but we were tired and the campsite was beautiful.

We both have Warbonnet Blackbirds and I got to try out my Speer Snugfit.
It didn't get as cold as I was expecting, maybe into the 50s but I was very comfortable.

The real hero of the trip was the MacCat Deluxe.
The weatherman was calling for isolated showers all weekend. At about 10:00 the first night, I awoke to an incredible display of lightning followed almost immediately by the thunder. Rain came pouring down as hard as I have ever seen. This continued until well after midnight but when it was all over, everything was still dry. Here is a pic after the storm.

On Saturday, we took a day hike on down to our original destination, the top of the Laurel Fork Falls. There are three campsites at the top of the falls. Here is one of them.

Here is standing at the top of the falls, looking over the edge. The falls has three steps or cascades. You can only see one from here.

Here it is closer to the bottom. I was standing at the top of this one in the last pic.

The biggest surprise of the weekend was some visitors on Saturday just before dark. A church group of 27 ( yes that is twenty-seven) men wandered in. They had planned to stop here and were clearly a little disappointed that the site was in use. Since it was a pretty large area and there was no way they could reach another site before dark, we told them to make themselves at home. They had a couple of guitars (yes they did!) and a drum, so after supper was over, we all sat around the fire, that they built with wet wood, and sang. The scenario was repeated again Sunday morning.
There was a lot of interest in our hammocks and I've steered them to this site for more info. I believe I may have converted a couple of them. It will be interesting to see if we get any new members from the Holy Cross Episcopal Church on Sullivan's Island near Charleston SC.

He is your friend, your companion, your defender... he is your dog. You are his life, his leader, and master. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of that devotion.